TweetDeck Beta

I suggest looking into letting the user decide, kind of like an a la carte addition of a service, and let the service plug into your api.

Some services are less popular, but have a nice feature that sets them apart -- like being able to edit the destination url like cli.gs does.

Our marketshare is still fairly tiny compared to the sites you mention, but my (biased) opinion is that you should look to support different functionalities versus just the most popular. TinyURL, though the biggest, really has no value-add. I like the "guest" idea :-)

If I could have my way, I would add a new section in settings, and have a list of "supported" URL shortening apps. Then, have a checkbox next to each one. If the box next to it is checked, then it shows up on the list of available sites. If not, it does not. Then, every few months, make sure the top 5 are added, and kept up on... maybe even make a list of 3 or 4 that you say you will support, as long as the sites themselves are actively worked on. Then, we can be sure the one we choose, does not go away, inside of tweetdeck, unless the service itself goes away.

Really, sometimes I actually, honest to God WANT MY LINKS TO BE LEFT ALONE!!

So, yes, add all you want... but don't FORCE A SHORTENING on us!

Thank you.

The feature I would most like to see TweetDeck add with regard to URL shortening would be support for custom URLs, as supported by tr.im and many other services, so I could enter both a URL and a "slug" to turn http://somelongurl.com/.... into http://tr.im/customurl

For the record, the URL-shortening services I use most are (roughly in order) is.gd, TinyURL, tr.im, and Ginx.

Never-the-less, my vote would have went to TwitLik (http://twitlik.com) and yeah I am partial but I don't use ... and won't use any other service.

While I feel that many of the metrics idek provides aren't fully duplicated by most of the other services, I don't think any one other services can differentiate enough to edge out the top 5 you have chosen.

THAT IS -- aside from tinyurl. Honestly, it doesn't really provide any value and isn't really that short. I would suggest dropping tinyurl in favor of another shortener which has more support from users and more features.

Whether that's idek.net or the next shortener in your list (#6) is up to you and the tweetdeck community.

For any idekers out there, remember you can still use idek without any copying or pasting by using the idek tweetit bookmark. For more info, go to http://idek.net/url-shortening-bookmarks.php

Thanks again for providing tweetdeck to everyone for free, it is well appreciated!

Anyone that wants their shorten service included thereafter, will need to bother a third party instead ;)

I'd personally also like the ability to add my preferred URL shortening service. If there's one I'd prefer to use, I would really like a way to plug in into TweetDeck somehow.

I agree with Rifter when he said:

If I could have my way, I would add a new section in settings, and have a list of "supported" URL shortening apps. Then, have a checkbox next to each one. If the box next to it is checked, then it shows up on the list of available sites.

This system is widely used here in Brazil and I think it may be very useful in TweetDeck mostly by brazilian users today.

Just for information, I'm (@napoleao) not "owner" of the service. Owner is @jonnyken if need more infos or technical issues. ;)

If you're only going to include 5, look to see which ones are being used independent of platform.

My favorite URL shorteners are: is.gd, zi.ma, bit.ly and ow.ly - in no particular order.

I like the suggestion below for a plugin system of some sort. This way us end users can help extend TweetDeck and possibly make life easier for you and make TweetDeck even more useful.

That way I could use my own homebrewed url shortener when tweeting. Mine presents users with a page showing who created the link, a description, and where it leads so that they know where they're heading and why before clicking. I created it after some friends asked for it.

It is web service for URL shortening but you can put your own ad at the top. You can put ad link for your site or some affiliate link code. You can also buy cheap target traffic (ad showing by keywords)

Look at http://my.longurl.net

www.longurl.net have some features which is unique and is not suported in other url shortening services. You can put your own ads at the top of the redirected page. You can also put your ads on URLs of other users. You can install longurl plugin at
your blog or forum and get money for advertising on their network. It is not yet another url shortening web service. It is new generation of free target internet marketing.

Try it at http://my.longurl.net

That said, this is a good improvement.

Thank you.

http://www.viewista.com

Viewista creates a short URL for “multiple” websites. Plus, you can view the multiple sites all at once. We think it can be a real time-saver. You can also post comments on the sites and share with your friends, making it a social URL sharing service. Viewista can be particularly useful on Twitter because a user can create a short URL for multiple sites on a topic without having to use multiple tweets.

Read more: http://tweetdeck.posterous.com/url-shortening-services#ixzz0E7tETbLk&B

Anywho, we've recently developed a new URL shortening service for Twitter, specifically the "retweets".

Say Hello, to http://RT.nu :) !!! We'd LOVE to see it utilized in Tweetdeck and so would thousands of others!

I have found the http://u.nu/ is the fastest and creates the shortest URLs. I use it and/or http://is.gd/ because it "is good". :)

Does it offer an unlimited REST API interface? Also, is there a webpage with a list of all/most of the URL shorteners?

I think that if TweetDeck offered a simple plugin type of interface so that endusers can create their own plugins for the various URL shorteners, the TweetDeck devs wouldn't have to worry about including them all in the main application. They could make their own plugins for a select handfull of the popular ones. Simple JavaScript may work, or some basic ActionScript, which is basically JavaScript anyways. You could have plugins like "tinyurl.short" or "bitly.short" for instance.

Am I going too far off base with this proposal?